Many Matzo Balls: Eating Contest Heads to Lone Star State

Big Appetite: Joey Chestnut wolfed down 78 matzo balls.
Has the world of competitive matzo ball eating moved south? The popular contest that was held for seven years straight at Ben’s deli in New York City came to an end in 2004, when Eric “Badlands” Booker claimed a victory. But now it seems that some people in Texas are ready to revive the tradition.

Big Appetite: Joey Chestnut wolfed down 78 matzo balls.
Earlier this month, Houston set the stage for the first-ever World Matzoh Ball Eating Championship, hosted by Kenny & Ziggy’s New York Delicatessen Restaurant (a restaurant located in Houston), the Jewish Herald-Voice reported. Professional competitive-eating champ Joey Chestnut claimed the top prize of $1,500 and broke Booker’s record, ingesting 78 matzo balls in eight minutes (in 2004, Booker ate 21 balls in five minutes and 25 seconds).
Chestnut, 24, didn’t have much experience with this particular staple of Jewish cuisine before he started training for the contest (he’s not Jewish). “I think I tried them once at a friend’s house, but other than that I’d never eaten them in mass quantity,” he told The Shmooze. “It turns out that I like them. I ate more than I thought I would.”
A California native, Chestnut made headlines last summer in an upset at the Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest, held at Nathan’s in Brooklyn’s Coney Island, when he unseated the reigning champion, Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi of Japan.
As for New Yorkers still hoping for another matzo ball eating contest in the Big Apple, they might be better off planning a trip to the Lone Star State next year. Scott Singer, president of Ben’s, told The Shmooze that the company canceled its event because it was “no longer meeting our marketing objectives.”
The Houston contest was a charity event, and it had the official stamp of approval of the International Federation of Competitive Eating and Major League Eating.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.